It is quite remarkable that a continent, which for much of its modern history was embroiled in internecine warfare, now seems to be one of the most stable regions of the world. Since the end of World War II, no wars have been fought in Europe. That is if one excludes the Balkan wars of the 1990s, something I will return to below. It is not surprising, therefore, that scholars working within the discipline of International Relations have been eager to explain this apparent puzzle in an effort to see this state of affairs maintained and/or to transfer any "lessons learned" to other regions of the world. In this essay I will set out three sets of explanations which are debated in the literature 1) Cold War overlay arguments; 2) democracy and economic interdependence arguments; and 3) security community arguments. These should not necessarily be seen as competing explanations - although they are sometimes presented in this way - but rather as different "lenses" through which to focus on a particular aspect of the puzzle. Show
The starting point for the first set of explanations or arguments is the particular situation Europe found itself in at the end of World War II. Germany had been defeated and divided into two occupation zones: a Western one, governed by Britain, France and the United States, and an Eastern one, administered by the Soviet Union. In the years that followed, this division between East and West was extended to encompass the whole of Europe as the former allies who had fought against Nazi Germany embarked on a new conflict which was soon known as the Cold War. Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister of Britain, in 1946 spoke of an "iron curtain" having descended upon Europe, dividing the continent from Stettin in the Baltic Sea to Trieste in the Adriatic Sea. The Western nations, under the leadership of the United States, banded together in the NATO alliance, and the Eastern nations, led by the Soviet Union, in the Warsaw Pact. The core arguments which follow from this are that the overarching conflict between the two so-called super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, armed with nuclear weapons, worked to suppress any open hostilities within Europe. This was why it was termed a Cold War. Moreover, it also helped to suppress traditional rivalries within each opposing ‘camp': for example, (West) Germany and France, and (East) Germany and Poland. To put it bluntly, it was no longer feasible to have isolated wars between individual European states, everything was subsumed within the larger East-West confrontation, which due to the presence of nuclear weapons, had to remain cold. A hot war, it was believed, would inevitably lead to mutual annihilation.
The first thing that should be noted is that democracy and economic interdependence can be considered two different sets of arguments. However, most of the time they are presented as interconnected and hence this will also be the way they are dealt with here. The basic premise of these types of arguments is that in the aftermath of World War II all the nations of Western Europe became democracies, and democracies do not seem to wage wars against each other. Scholars have come up with a number of supporting arguments for why this is the case, ranging from democratic norms working against the use of force in international relations to various checks and balances in democratic systems that make it hard for hawkish decision-makers to choose such policies without the consent of the people. The latter argument is often also based on the assumption that a given people will be rationally opposed to war, since it is likely to bear most of the costs. This fits nicely with the economic interdependence argument, which holds that democratic nations seem to trade more with each other and thus have strong economic incentives not to jeopardise this with war. During the Cold War, these kinds of arguments obviously only applied to the democracies of Western Europe, but since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the enlargement of the EU and NATO, they have been marshalled in support of a pan-European peace. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style Copy CitationShare Share Share to social media Facebook Twitter URL https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-WarGive Feedback External Websites Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Your Feedback Submit FeedbackThank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. External Websites
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By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Last Updated: Nov 30, 2022 Edit History Table of Contents North Atlantic Treaty Organization See all media Date:1947 - 1962...(Show more)Participants:North Atlantic Treaty Organization Soviet Union United States Warsaw Treaty Organization...(Show more)Context:international relations...(Show more)Major Events:Cuban missile crisis Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Berlin crisis of 1961 collapse of the Soviet Union...(Show more)Key People:Dean Acheson John Foster Dulles John F. Kennedy Kim Philby Ronald Reagan...(Show more) See all related content → Top Questions What was the Cold War?The Cold War was an ongoing political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies that developed after World War II. This hostility between the two superpowers was first given its name by George Orwell in an article published in 1945. Orwell understood it as a nuclear stalemate between “super-states”: each possessed weapons of mass destruction and was capable of annihilating the other. The Cold War began after the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, when the uneasy alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other started to fall apart. The Soviet Union began to establish left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe, determined to safeguard against a possible renewed threat from Germany. The Americans and the British worried that Soviet domination in eastern Europe might be permanent. The Cold War was solidified by 1947–48, when U.S. aid had brought certain Western countries under American influence and the Soviets had established openly communist regimes. Nevertheless, there was very little use of weapons on battlefields during the Cold War. It was waged mainly on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and lasted until 1991. How did the Cold War end?The Cold War came to a close gradually. The unity in the communist bloc was unraveling throughout the 1960s and ’70s as a split occurred between China and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Japan and certain Western countries were becoming more economically independent. Increasingly complex international relationships developed as a result, and smaller countries became more resistant to superpower cajoling. The Cold War truly began to break down during the administration of Mikhail Gorbachev, who changed the more totalitarian aspects of the Soviet government and tried to democratize its political system. Communist regimes began to collapse in eastern Europe, and democratic governments rose in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, followed by the reunification of West and East Germany under NATO auspices. Gorbachev’s reforms meanwhile weakened his own communist party and allowed power to shift to the constituent governments of the Soviet bloc. The Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, giving rise to 15 newly independent nations, including a Russia with an anticommunist leader. Why was the Cuban missile crisis such an important event in the Cold War?In the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union were developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. In 1962 the Soviet Union began to secretly install missiles in Cuba to launch attacks on U.S. cities. The confrontation that followed, known as the Cuban missile crisis, brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles. The conflict showed that both superpowers were wary of using their nuclear weapons against each other for fear of mutual atomic annihilation. The signing of the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty followed in 1963, which banned aboveground nuclear weapons testing. Still, after the crisis, the Soviets were determined not to be humiliated by their military inferiority again, and they began a buildup of conventional and strategic forces that the United States was forced to match for the next 25 years. Summary Read a brief summary of this topicCold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” It was first used in the United States by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947. A brief treatment of the Cold War follows. For full treatment, see international relations. Origins of the Cold WarFollowing the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 near the close of World War II, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel. By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. The Americans and the British feared the permanent Soviet domination of eastern Europe and the threat of Soviet-influenced communist parties coming to power in the democracies of western Europe. The Soviets, on the other hand, were determined to maintain control of eastern Europe in order to safeguard against any possible renewed threat from Germany, and they were intent on spreading communism worldwide, largely for ideological reasons. The Cold War had solidified by 1947–48, when U.S. aid provided under the Marshall Plan to western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in eastern Europe. The struggle between superpowersThe Cold War reached its peak in 1948–53. In this period the Soviets unsuccessfully blockaded the Western-held sectors of West Berlin (1948–49); the United States and its European allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a unified military command to resist the Soviet presence in Europe (1949); the Soviets exploded their first atomic warhead (1949), thus ending the American monopoly on the atomic bomb; the Chinese communists came to power in mainland China (1949); and the Soviet-supported communist government of North Korea invaded U.S.-supported South Korea in 1950, setting off an indecisive Korean War that lasted until 1953. Britannica Quiz A History of WarExplore technological innovations of the Cold War See all videos for this articleHow the Cold War helped foster antibiotic resistance See all videos for this articleFrom 1953 to 1957 Cold War tensions relaxed somewhat, largely owing to the death of the longtime Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1953; nevertheless, the standoff remained. A unified military organization among the Soviet-bloc countries, the Warsaw Pact, was formed in 1955; and West Germany was admitted into NATO that same year. Another intense stage of the Cold War was in 1958–62. The United States and the Soviet Union began developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, and in 1962 the Soviets began secretly installing missiles in Cuba that could be used to launch nuclear attacks on U.S. cities. This sparked the Cuban missile crisis (1962), a confrontation that brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles. The Cuban missile crisis showed that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union were ready to use nuclear weapons for fear of the other’s retaliation (and thus of mutual atomic annihilation). The two superpowers soon signed the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty of 1963, which banned aboveground nuclear weapons testing. But the crisis also hardened the Soviets’ determination never again to be humiliated by their military inferiority, and they began a buildup of both conventional and strategic forces that the United States was forced to match for the next 25 years. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Throughout the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union avoided direct military confrontation in Europe and engaged in actual combat operations only to keep allies from defecting to the other side or to overthrow them after they had done so. Thus, the Soviet Union sent troops to preserve communist rule in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979). For its part, the United States helped overthrow a left-wing government in Guatemala (1954), supported an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba (1961), invaded the Dominican Republic (1965) and Grenada (1983), and undertook a long (1964–75) and unsuccessful effort to prevent communist North Vietnam from bringing South Vietnam under its rule (see Vietnam War). What caused tension between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II?Postwar Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe fueled many Americans' fears of a Russian plan to control the world. Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they perceived as American officials' bellicose rhetoric, arms buildup and interventionist approach to international relations.
What was the major disagreement between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II quizlet?The Soviet Union was a communist country that wanted to expand communism in the world. The United States, however, did not want communism to spread. This disagreement caused tension between the two nations and even led to wars in Korea and Vietnam.
What was the main disagreement between the US and the Soviet Union?It was the great ideological struggle, with the US on the side of capitalism and profit, and the USSR pushing Communism, so-called.
Why did the US and the Soviet Union fight together during World War II?The alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II developed out of necessity, and out of a shared realization that each country needed the other to defeat one of the most dangerous and destructive forces of the twentieth century.
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